Bhubaneswar, Oct 3 (IANS): Early trends showed that the Naveen Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal (BJD) was leading in the Pipili bypoll for which counting is underway.

Three rounds of counting of votes have been completed so far and the BJD is leading by 5,044 votes.

As many as 23,928 votes have been counted in the three rounds. BJD candidate Rudrapratap Maharathy has got 13,611 votes while BJP's Ashrit Pattanayak is in second position with 8,567 votes. Congress candidate Bishwokeshan Harichandan Mohapatra has, so far, got 1,180 votes, as per the Election Commission of India (ECI) report.

In terms of percentage, the BJD got 56.88 per cent of total votes counted till third round, followed by BJP (35.8 per cent) and Congress (4.93 per cent).

Puri SP Kanwar Vishal Singh said a three-tier security system has been put in place at the counting centre. Force has been deployed at the innermost cordon, the middle cordon and the outer cordon, he said.

A total of 62 government officials have been engaged to count the votes at 14 tables set up in three halls. While three additional AROs have been appointed by the Election Commission for the counting, the process will be supervised by an election observer, an official said.

Notably, BJD nominee Rudrapratap is the son of former MLA Pradeep Maharathy, who died in October last year and for which the by-poll was conducted. Pradeep was elected to the Odisha assembly seven times from the seat. The BJP has re-nominated Ashrit Pattnayak while Congress has nominated Bishwokeshan Harichandan Mohapatra for the MLA seat.